Barcelona, Spain, Mar 14, 2005 / 12:00 am (CNA).- A Spanish advertising designer has launched an ad campaign promoting the use of condoms in AIDS prevention, employing an image of the Jesus holding a condom in his left hand instead of the Sacred Heart.
“Love your neighbor as yourself. Using condoms for prevention is divine” is the catchphrase that appears underneath the image on posters and billboards in Seville.

Rafael Iglesias, the designer who is financing the ads, has “decorated” the streets in protest of the Church’s teaching on condoms, “for its stubbornness in denying people such an important means of protection.”

According to the Spanish daily “El Periódico,” Iglesias argued that “as a person privileged by my access to the media, I would be a coward if I did not use it to call attention to this cause.”

“The Sacred Heart is not an image in any way exclusive either to the intransigent Spanish clergy or to any religious association, but rather transcends all cultures,” Iglesias stated, claiming that Jesus, “as far as we know, would have done everything humanly and divinely possible to eradicate this biblical curse of our time, AIDS, which is afflicts us.”

Widespread rejection

The ad campaign by Iglesias has been widely criticized for ridiculing the religious convictions of the majority of Spaniards.

Iglesias claimed the rejection was due to a lack of “a sense of humor.” “But it doesn’t matter, because in other places we are running out of posters, and people are asking for them before we even put them up.”